Obama: ‘What Is It About’ State of Democracy Where ‘Not Very Interesting’ Emails Become ‘Obsession’?

During an interview broadcast on Monday’s edition of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” President Obama asked, “what is it about the state of our democracy, where the leaks of what were frankly not very interesting emails, that didn’t have any explosive information in them, ended up being an obsession,” and was subject to breathless coverage that was depicted as somehow damning in all sorts of ways, when the truth of the matter was it was fairly routine stuff.”

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Obama said, “I think what everybody has to reflect on is, what is it about our political ecosystem, what is it about the state of our democracy, where the leaks of what were frankly not very interesting emails, that didn’t have any explosive information in them, ended up being an obsession, and the fact that the Russians were doing this was not an obsession?”

He added, “The real question that I think we all have to reflect on is, what’s happened to our political system where some emails that were hacked and released ended up being the overwhelming story and the constant source of coverage, breathless coverage that was depicted as somehow damning in all sorts of ways, when the truth of the matter was it was fairly routine stuff.”